


Flour, Butter and Sugar

by makeshiftrolley



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 06:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/makeshiftrolley
Summary: Vetra tries baking.





	Flour, Butter and Sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glittering_Darmallon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glittering_Darmallon/gifts).



A quick search on the extranet gives her the recipe, festive butter cookies. “Perfect for the holidays,” as the site advertises, followed by a story about a human author and her husband getting trapped inside their winter home.

“I came up with this recipe while my husband and I almost froze to death in the Canadian Rocky Mountains!” The author boasts. Frankly, it's a load of varren shit, Vetra thinks but she needs the recipe for Ryder. After five paragraphs chronicling the author's winter of 2155 in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (which includes a different story about how her son offered the cookies to his fiancée on their engagement party), she finds a list of ingredients and the recipe.

Butter, check.

Flour, check.

Vanilla extract, check. (A simple liquid resembling, well...uh _water waste_ costs more than the best rifle scope in the blackmarket).

Baking powder, check.

Egg-- _liquid egg yolks_ (“I make scrambled eggs with these,” said the human she bought the “eggs” from. Humans eat scrambled eggs, right?), Check, sort of.

Sugar, check.

_Confectioners sugar? What's that?_ The baker said nothing about confectioners sugar--gave her this list and told her to find instructions on the net.

(“My recipe is worth more than all the credits in the galaxy!” said the baker when Vetra bribed her with credits. And she offered Vetra her butter cookies, which she declined.

She wanted to make them for Ryder.)

Ten minutes later, and after reading an article on a recipe for confectioners sugar and another pointless tale about a human and her husband in a winter cabin, Vetra decides the confectioners sugar is not worth it. She’ll use the ordinary, _non-confectioners_ sugar and sprinkles. If confectioners sugar is used for decoration and _flavour_ , sugar and sprinkles will do.

She can start.

“Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit,” Vetra reads. “Don’t see why I need to do that but okay.”

“Put the ingredients in a bowl and mix it. Oh that should be easy.” She dumps all the ingredients at once. The recipe doesn’t say which order they go in. Vetra shrugs; it wouldn’t matter at the end when she bakes the cookies.

She mixes, swirling the mixer around the bowl--the best three fingers maneuvering a hand mixer can do. Dollops of golden batter jump from the bowl and coat the counter. Vetra frowns. The kitchen is a mess but at least, she has her cookie batter. She can’t taste them or even have the final product but as long as Ryder loves it, she loves it too.

Sliding the tray of uncooked cookies in the oven, Vetra sets a timer for ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, the cookies come out flat and brown at the edges. Vetra compares them with the picture on the site. They’re golden, dense and scrumptious unlike her flat cookies.

They smell fantastic though. A dash of sprinkles on the sides should fix the problem.

 

\--

Turian holidays aren’t holidays per say.

They’re over glorified military parades, where the Hierarchy has an excuse for having televised meetings and the Primarch talks for two hours about Palaven’s history. Nevertheless, Vetra enjoys them, when she had a mother and a father to spend the holidays with.

After Palaven, holidays were a luxury she cannot afford. Why celebrate Unification Day when neither she nor Sid are turian citizens? Why spend the day honouring whichever spirit of the month when she owes credits?

Sometimes, when the loans are paid and they’ve eaten consistently for a couple of months, Vetra can afford the holidays. She tries the best she can, from the minimal knowledge she has of Palaven traditions, to celebrate the holidays with Sid.

Sid never likes them and Vetra stops trying. They’re neither turian citizens after all.

 

\--

Ryder invites Vetra to spend the holidays with her, alone. She comes in her finest carapace--a sleek pinstripe suit and a matching red tie. With a confidence Vetra never had, she struts along Hydroponics. The people gawking at her don't know. She has a girlfriend waiting for her in their rented apartment.

Clutching the bag of festive butter cookies, Vetra rings the bell.

“Coming!” Ryder calls.

The door slides open. Ryder leans against the door frame looking as stunning as she imagined in her red and green dress. Her tinted lips curl into a playful smile, gazing at the plant hanging on the door frame.

“Nice plant...decor,” Vetra says.

Ryder giggles. “It's a mistletoe.”

“Nice mistletoe decor.”

Ryder leans on her toes, leaning by Vetra's shoulder. “We're supposed to kiss under it.”

“Oh."

“Yeah.”

Before Vetra can Ryder presses her mouth against hers. She throws her arm around Vetra's neck, pulling her for a deeper kiss. For a moment time pauses, and the universe shrinks to just them--Ryder and her, her and Ryder.

She has starlight in her eyes when they break and Vetra falls for them each time.

They have dinner after, a fare of some roasted meat, potatoes and vegetables for Ryder and its dextro equivalent for Vetra. The food tastes amazing; it reminds her of home--of Palaven, of the Unification Day feasts swimming in her fragmented memories. Maybe, they were joyous, the holiest of holidays when her mother and father _loved_. Maybe, they weren't but her memories cloud her eyes with watery mists. She rubs eyes to clear them away.

“Oh shit, did I do something wrong?” Ryder worries her mouth between her teeth.

“No, no,” Vetra shakes her head, laughing. “Sorry, I just thought of home. Palaven.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, made me think of my mother and father when they were, you know.”

Ryder sips her wine. “I asked Sid to help me make it.”

“Sid?” Her eyes grow wide; Sidera Nyx knows less about Palaven than her

“She said it was your favourite.”

Maybe, Vetra did teach her something when she tried to celebrate turian holidays outside Palaven.

 

After dinner, they sit on the carpeted floor by a crackling fire. Ryder has decorated the place; a jolly old man in a red suit stands on the mantle and a string of lights hang from the shelf. Ryder picks up a beautifully wrapped box from under a plastic tree.

“I got you a present.” She says, smiles and watches intently as Vetra tears off the golden wrapper. It's a special edition of  _Fleet and Flotilla_ , one with a special ending only a few have seen. Vetra has been looking for it since before they left the Milky Way. 

"How did you find this? And wait, I never told you that I liked _Fleet and Flotilla._ " 

"Contacts," Ryder says. "And Sid told me you had a fondness for  _Fleet and Flotilla_."

Vetra's heart feels full. No one has given her a gift before. She always gives and gives, and expects none in return. She pecks Ryder on the cheek. "Thank you." 

"Here's my present." She hands Ryder the bag of festive butter cookies. "I made them myself. They're festive butter cookies and I heard humans have them all the time on holidays.:

Ryder takes a cookie out, and gives a small bite. Vetra holds her breath, clenching her suit as Ryder chews on the piece. She might not like it as she didn't like the steak Vetra served before. The cookie is too flat, too sweet and not good for her human palate. 

"It's good," Ryder says. "I really like it!" And she takes a bigger bite, smiling as she chews. 

Vetra exhales. She loved it. She really did love it. 

(And she can tell the baker who denied her the recipe, anyone can maker her butter cookies.)

Ryder straddles her lap, kissing her deep. Soft and sweet at first, but soon her kisses become heated, desperate. She pulls away, resting her forehead against Vetra's.

"So with all that food we ate," Ryder says, trailing a finger on Vetra's carapace. "We could spend the rest of the night burning calories."

Vetra knows what she means, and slides her talon at the back of her dress.

"Yeah."


End file.
